


Think of the Ways

by Abby_Ebon



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:02:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Ebon/pseuds/Abby_Ebon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: </p><p>[not!mash-up CHAOS]Gen - Clint and Natasha always know how they would kill someone<br/>More like 'inspired by' than mash-up.</p><p>Clint and Natasha always have a plan for how they would take someone down, at any given moment, using whatever is around.</p><p>Like the scene from the series CHAOS that's at the end of this vid (I tried to find a stand alone clip and couldn't):</p><p> </p><p>http://youtu.be/X1nT4w3PEx0</p><p> </p><p>Can be pairings, too, if you like. Just not with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fury

Natasha tries not to dwell on how she would kill Nick Fury, for it would upset Phil Coulson so very much. She understands there are things like responsibility, loyalty and power - she just doesn't feel them for Fury. It's Phil Coulson and Clint that tie her to a web which spans world wide, where she can have her pick of to-be-killed; so long as it is in the line of duty.   
  
Oh, but sometimes...  
  
She closes her eyes and sees it.   
  
Sees as Nick Fury sits behind his desk and raises an eyebrow when Natasha straddles the chair rather then sit in it properly, "like a lady". Her returning look would be daring and bold, a smirk would circle her lips. He would slide a folder over to her, and it would be someone who makes Natasha pause, someone familiar and who she likes. Fury won't care, he thinks she's only a pawn - to be used and put away, perhaps a tool knife sharp and stinging, but unfeeling.   
  
Natasha is afraid one day that Nick Fury will want her to kill someone she doesn't want to kill. It might be anyone.   
  
"Do you accept this mission?" Nick will ask her, sounding bored with the formality. It is just finality; of course the Black Widow will kill. Anyone, anywhere.   
  
Natasha will smile, will wink.   
  
Will stab him in his bad eye, will make him scream as she kicks him in the throat. The chair will be flung toward the wall and she will impale him with a thrown shiv to the chest. Messy but oh so effective; he be pinned there, weeping and bleeding like a butterfly, until she ends his misery.   
Then she will say; “No.”  
  
“Natasha?” Fury frowns at her, as if he knows – or wonders- what she’s thinking of.   
  
She smiles and says: "Yes".


	2. Tony Stark

-Tony Stark-  
  
Natasha has known many men, both professionally and personally, some she has killed – some she has let live. In Tony Stark are the best and worst of them. He is quite simply brilliant, a genius with morals, and a man who sees something wrong in the world and rights it. Simply because he can do it, he does. It’s what he is. What he can not help being. What she admires most in him.   
  
He is also in many ways like a child, he sees only a right way and a wrong way; he lets his feelings get in the way. It is best not to confuse him to which is which. Obadiah saw to the opening of his eyes, he will forever doubt the intentions of men close to him, who can and have hurt him.   
  
Pepper and his mother have insured he seek out women to be his confidents, he trusts them in ways Tony can never trust men again. He loves them, lusts after them, and will always seek them when he wants reassurance, confidence, or comfort and kindness. These things women give to him willingly.   
  
He will see a light in the dark and think it’s good and honest and right; when it could be a trap. He sees a woman that doesn’t need protection, that protects him, and he thinks she’s dangerous and deadly – but that she’s always going to protect him, favor him; will never hurt him.  
  
He doesn’t think he can be wrong.   
  
Natasha doesn’t know, not really, how Tony came to see Natasha as someone to trust with his heart.   
  
It is what it is, and Natasha does her best to protect him – but sometimes – oh, sometimes…Natasha hurts with how easy it could be.  
  
There is always something Tony does that annoys Pepper, and Tony has gotten into the habit of coming to Natasha when Pepper tells him so. He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong, and it is Natasha he wants to help him make things right – to see things with her insight. It is a small thing she offers him, because it helps him – and he is a comrade. His weaknesses are hers, her strengths his too.   
  
One day, a day Natasha can hope will never come; it won’t be enough to save Tony Stark. His weaknesses or strengthens will not match with hers; they will not be equals or comrades, but enemies and opposites.   
  
It starts as it usually does.   
  
“Nat, are you busy?” Tony asks, coming in sulking and depressed. He’s fresh from his “basement retreat”, marred by sweat and stains of grease – shirtless. He thinks nothing of being so bare in the heart of Avengers Tower.  
  
“What is it?” Natasha counters; it isn’t “yes” or “no” with Tony Stark. It all depends.   
  
“Can you help me?” Tony whines, asking her attention. Natasha looks up and knows – there is no fixing it. She has no choice. In her kindness she will kill him.   
  
Natasha will nod thoughtfully and approach, Tony will let her, he trusts her.   
  
Natasha has been trained all her life to survive, to thrive, and quite simply – Tony has only been learning to recently.   
  
She will rip the reactor out, crushing it under her boot - and watch him watch her with wide eyes, he will fall to the floor and she will help him sink down comfortably, caringly. Natasha will see the scars and the black the flows in his veins, and she will weep. She’ll hold him until he’s gone, counting the beats of his pulse, from fast and laboring, to slow, to fluttering and weak.   
  
“I’m so sorry.” Natasha will whisper.   
  
She closes her eyes and sighs. Tony is still standing there, alive, slowly dying but thinking that Fury is keeping it quiet. He hasn’t, of course, to do so would endanger them all. Members of the "Avengers Initiative" can’t risk that.   
  
“Sure.” Natasha says instead, and Tony Stark will never know how close she came to killing him.


End file.
